Which one is the most articulate black man?

3 stories that disturbed me in order.

1) Last night I learned that Carlos Boozer of the Utah Jazz will be missing 4-6 weeks with a knee injury. Horrible news for my favorite sports team. Boozer has been the biggest reason why the Jazz have been playing well this year. But the rest of the Jazz helped turn my frown upside down with an upset of the San Antonio Spurs last night. I only include this because as the lone Jazz fan outside of Utah I am obligated to give them some coverage from time to time.

2) Cover of the Daily news this morning – Puff Daddy as a proud new parent of twin girls. The picture was some cute family portrait with him, his girlfriend (aka the woman who has given birth to the largest percentage of his children) and their twin girls. P Diddy says that “having girls changes a man.” He’s right – let’s see how it has changed him:

a) He was at Scores West last week with 2 females and the three of them asked 2 naked med students to join them in a VIP room. Probably asking advice on how to parent girls to make sure they don’t end up in a strip club 20 years from now with a wannabe rapper with an over inflated sense of importance.

b) He has been running around with Sienna Miller, the former almost Ms. Jude Law over the last few weeks. Probably asking her for nanny advice for his new girls.

c) Puffy Combs sucks and his daughters should have to grow up to be rap video hoes as punishment.

3) Then we get to Joe Biden and his comment about Barack Obama.

11 years ago Chris Rock did a special on HBO called Bring the Pain (my favorite stand up special of all time) where he said white people would never vote for Colin Powell because they always gave him the same compliments on the fact that “he’s so well spoken!” Well, it looks like Joe Biden has made a mistake along those lines. There are three ways to look at his comments:

a) He meant how amazing (AND RARE) it is to have a good looking and articulate black man. And he’s running for office to boot. – The Chris Rock approach

b) He meant that he presents the most viable black candidate in history because of his looks, credentials and his oratorical ability.

c) That ni–er sure can talk good.

I believe #2 is what Biden meant. Let’s face it – the two most prominent national black political figures of the last 20 years (at least as presidential politics are concerned) were Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Both men were nothing to write home about visually and both, although fiery orators with lots to say, represented the passion associated as much with Church sermons as political rallies. Obama presents a more classic orator as far as presidential politics is concerned and he is better looking than the other two.

Sidenote – please do not tell me that I am leaving out Alan Keyes from the discussion of prominent black men running for the presidency. He is crazy.

So I do not think that Biden is incorrect because I really feel that he was speaking of Obama from an electability standpoint and not from the perspective of the Chris Rock joke. However – he could have phrased it differently and should have because “well spoken” and “articulate” are truly loaded words in this day and age and should not be the first things you have to mention about a man with a Harvard Law degree.